New Features & Fixes - May 3 2009

 thank u erik :)

To everyone who didn't like the removal of the FEN/PGN from in-progress games, based on the feedback I've seen in this thread, is it fair to say that for a longer term solution to both problems that a combination of integration of current games with the Chess.com game explorer and the ability to turn the game explorer interface to local databases would have mitigated much, if not all of the backlash?

As you are a bright and reasonable man, I more or less expected that decision. Thank you for continuously working to improve this site, for the courage to try something unusual, and for the wisdom to accept contructive criticism.

Cheers, Erik!  :-)

What do you mean by "the ability to turn the game explorer interface to local databases"?

I also would like the colors back on the tactics trainer results page.  Adding a third color for partially complete might be interesting also.  Perhaps yellow?

grobe, I just see the whole fen removal to stop cheating as a total red herring.  Would the features you describe have worked for me?  Not really, I don't really rate the explorer content on chess.com, too many poor games and unknown players so you have to look through the all the games.  I like the functionality a lot, but don't trust the content much, so I use one local dbase and one other site which I'm obviously not going to mention, so I don't think that would have satisfied me.

Thank you Erik :-)

I'm having problems playing the videos.  I see one frame and then the video freezes but the sounds goes on.  If I skip forward in the video then it stays frozen on the first frame I skipped to.

My comp:

cable internet

733 processor

256 RAM

Firefox 3.0.1

Adobe Flash player 10,0,12,36

Oh, I hadn't thought to try the videos in Firefox...would it make any difference?  I'm using the Safari 4.0.  Ok...here goes another try at it...

Yes, try firefox. It didn't work on Safari for me either but it did work on firefox. 

In response to this, and to SensFan33, the second half of my hypothetical question was that the ability to turn the Game Explorer to your own local databases be made available -- this would mean that you're in full control of the content that Game Explorer explores and could use the databases Chess.com supplies if you wished, but also your own if you didn't.

I've done some more experimenting with trying to get the videos to work.  The end result was

The videos only work in full screen mode and only in internet explorer, for me...

It's still pretty choppy though.

OK, I just downloaded the new mobile version and had a quick self-guided tour of the new functionality and I think it's great.

One small problem though, is that the Analysis Board has a header that causes the first rank to disappear off the bottom of my screen.  Not a real issue for me as I'm not much of an analysis board user, but likely a real problem for those who are.

How does that work? How can I upload games to the site, without it having to store (potentially, if everyone uses it as I would) MILLIONS of games?

".....ok. PGN and FEN will come back. seems the medicine was worse than the disease... :)......"

Thank you so very much (yeah!)

Barefoot_Player

I don't actually know how feasible it would be, but if I were designing it I would try very hard to avoid uploading your database and have it instead just read from a local database.  There may well be security implications that would require the explorer to at least have a downloadable client component in order to do this, I don't actually know, and maybe that's a deal breaker but I'd ultimately defer to Erik and his staff to make that call, along with deciding if it would be something they'd want to pursue in the first place. 

I will say this, though:  I can certainly see the value in it -- the Game Explorer interface is a wonderful tool, but I've seen a number of complaints about the data -- this would allow you to turn that great interface towards your own data effectively giving you the best of both worlds.  As an added bonus, in conjunction with a link between your games and the Game Explorer interface for your current position I'd think it would virtually eliminate any argument for the need to export FEN and PGN for any games in progress*.  I was interested to understand if this view was in fact supportable.

*(Perhaps the ability to have the mobile interface cache your games for when your out of range or generally off network would also be helpful)

Videos are an awesome addition! I hope to update to a Diamond membership once this one expires in a few months. Amazing stuff!

Does mobile chess cost money? i'm sure you have to go on the internet for it..? please explain this to me :D

The number of moves you can make on it each month as a non-premium member are limited, but as I understand it there are otherwise no restrictions.

Is anything going to be done about the move numbering in thematic games??????

I'm bringing it up again becuase it seems to have been lost in the pgn/fen discussion.